To restate the story of Boko Haram asymmetrical war and all the hypocrisy of “winning the war”, “decimating the enemy”, “destroying their bases” and all other claptraps from this government, is like, to paraphrase an old line from Shakespeare, a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!
After five years as leader of this embattled nation, the Boko Haram ongoing genocide against the Nigerian state has consistently exposed President Muhammadu Buhari’s gross incompetence, the incapability of our army, our strategic nakedness, our ahistorical understanding of a modern Nigerian society and worse, our disdain for truth.
In the North East, West, Central and Benue State, the rampaging and murderous instinct of Boko Haram terrorists, kidnappers, bandits and rapists have become a daily peril. The statistics of daily deaths have not escaped our notice. These murderous killings are now compelling some conscientious Nigerians to rethink perceptions that some of us thought were unquestionable and axiomatic even as we coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is us, the people and our true authentic voices – the few conscientious Nigerians, not the lies of our government- who possess the right and the moral legitimacy to rise up and speak truth to power in one accord.
Eleven years on, successive Nigerian governments have fettered public opinion and practiced obscurantism against Nigerians on the true state of the war against Boko Haram terrorists. When Muhammadu Buhari became president in 2015, he promised to reclaim our democracy and redefine a new paradigm shift based on winning the war against Boko Haram and the rebuilding of the ruins of war across Northern Nigeria. We gave him a warm and comforting platform to prophesy a radical approach towards fighting the terrorists. We anchored our collective hope on his antecedent as a former General in the Nigerian Army.
Today, Boko Haram terrorists have regained demonic strength and nothing has deterred their capacity for destruction except if we want to live in a state of denial and obvious hypocrisy. Boko Haram war is the singular test of President Buhari’s integrity as a war-time leader but sadly, he has failed. The latest killing happened on Tuesday 9th June 2020. In the North East, at least 81 people were butchered by Boko Haram fighters on that day.
The US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, had to send a ballistic missile to all the Covidiots managing the war like this: “We condemn the recent senseless and brazen killings of civilians’ in northern Nigeria. In recent weeks, suspected ISIS West Africa militants launched multiple attacks in Borno State, killing more than 120 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly. On June 9, unidentified armed bandits attacked a village in Katsina State, killing dozens.
These horrific crimes follow the shooting of a pastor and his pregnant wife on June 1 and the killing of an imam, local village head, and several civilians on June 5 in the course of inter-communal violence in Taraba State. Tens of thousands of civilians’ have lost their lives in Nigeria in recent years to violent attacks by terrorist groups or criminal gangs, in inter-communal violence, or due to their religious beliefs. The United States calls on the Government of Nigeria to do more to strengthen ongoing efforts to address this violence, hold those responsible accountable and protect civilians.”
Not to be outwitted by Pompeo’s intrusive admonitory comment against Buhari’s incompetence in the handling of Boko Haram war, Prof. Ango Abdullahi of the Northern Elders Forum dropped a reverberating clanger on Aso Rock like this:
“It would appear that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and governors have lost control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold. The situation is getting worse literally by the day as bandits and insurgents appear to sense a huge vacuum in political will and capacity which they exploit with disastrous consequences on communities and individuals. As a responsible body, the forum has joined millions of others in prayers and in giving advice and encouragement to all authorities that have responsibility to protect our communities. It is now time to say, enough is enough.
Our people are known for their patience and respect for constituted authorities, but all governments must be aware by now that all Northerners have been pushed to the wall. The forum is aware that some citizens are contemplating peaceful protests, which are their constitutional rights, to draw attention of President Buhari and all levels of authority to the plight of people of the North.
Our current circumstances in the North clearly demonstrate that President Buhari’s administration has woefully failed to achieve either. This is unacceptable. We demand an immediate and comprehensive improvement of our security in the North. We are tired of excuses and verbal threats which criminals laugh at, and our fellow citizens see as a clear failure of leadership which they see as part of them. Enough is enough.”
Prof. Abdullahi is a veteran of many political combats and polemical skirmishes. He is well known as a defender of popular liberties. At a time when Nigerians have succumbed to the dominoes of despair, utter silence, strange complacency and irrational quietness,
Prof Abdullahi is out with a justified and righteous indignation against the hollowing out of Nigerians by the unending scourge of insecurity. This Prof could fight his battle and speak truth to power, pump and perversions especially when we are going through manic crisis of perpetual war of insurgency across Northern Nigeria. He once said that Lord Fredrick Lugard made a generational mistake by amalgamating the North with the South. Our unity, to this distinctive Northern rebel, had been tragic! How prophetic! How brutally true! That’s vintage Prof. Ango Abdullahi.
This government is swimming in a septic tank of denial, self-justification, moral decay, political mayhem (Oshiomole/Obaseki impasse) and high incompetence on many levels. In a colonial mentality obedience, the Aso Rock media high command muted its critical voice on the criticism of Pompeo, but will not allow Prof. Abdullahi’s insult pass without a response. As expected, journalism Olympian, the Abuja afro-haired and defender-in-chief Femi Adesina has leapt to the defence of a lazy, tired, incompetent and lame duck President Buhari.
With his raging journalistic hormone, he seems to want to pursue an agenda of ex-communication against an apostate like Prof. Abdullahi. With typical Adesina’s contrariness, he called Abdullahi a “mere irritant and paper weight…… the one-man army called NEF had shown its antipathy against President Buhari, and its preference for another candidate. They all got beaten together.”
Adesina’s descent into rude language to smother Prof. Abdullahi’s discontent is a no brainer. Prof. Abdullahi is the unquiet patriot who will not align with the silent majority who are quiet as we normalise the moral, social, political and cultural decay Nigeria faces daily. Adesina is driving a one dimensional media approach as a government megaphone.
There is power in silence especially when you are the spin doctor to a president that had defied all noble expectations since he began his Republic of Fulani agenda in Nigeria.
Defending the indefensible is a moral horror even as the blind could see that President Buhari has been making shambolic responses to the extreme subset of Boko Haram militants across Northern Nigerian landscape. We should all push President Buhari out of his bunker mentality and also advice Adesina to stop crowding the social media space with shameless heroification of President Buhari.
In a paradoxical twist, the president has come to admit a belated failure of his service chiefs which, thankfully, has justified all the toxic criticisms levelled against him since his unremarkable journey as a reluctant democrat.
Prof. Abdullahi’s rebellious rage against Buhari is part, a reaction to the dangerous and growing unity of silence among the elites at the face of political turbulence, pain, killings and mini civil war across Northern Nigeria. We are all entitled to make loud groans, which, in a way, are the clearest articulation of our disenchantment with a stubborn, clueless and inept leader as we slip deeper into a chasm of chaos, confusion and conflicts.
